The nominees’ best dramatic moments
It’s finally happened: for the first time since The Sopranos wedged the door open for cable dramas in 1999, not one of the commercial broadcast networks is nominated for an Outstanding Drama Emmy.
Instead, HBO, AMC, Showtime and PBS have split the six nominations between them.
It’s almost as dire for the commercial nets in the drama acting categories. CBS and NBC managed to score in the Best Actress category for The Good Wife and the cancelled Harry’s Law. And there were nods in the Guest Actor/Actress fields for The Good Wife, Harry’s Law, NBC’s Smash and Parenthood, and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy.
But cable and PBS swept the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories.
One could argue that cable channels have an advantage when it comes to drama, with their ability to show sex, violence and profanity banned from the major networks in prime time.
But then again, on Downton Abbey, nary a swear word is heard and sex brings scandal in its wake.
Downton isn’t the only newbie challenging four-time winner Mad Men for the Best Drama crown. Homeland is also in the mix, along with three-time nominee Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, taking its second crack at the award.
Here’s a look at what are arguably the most dramatic moments from the nominated series, but if you’re saving episodes to watch later, be warned: there are spoilers ahead.
BOARDWALK EMPIRE
After a season of fighting off rivals in the illegal booze business and avoiding convictions on racketeering and murder, Nucky Thompson (Best Actor nominee Steve Buscemi) is back in the catbird seat in Atlantic City’s underworld. On a bleaky, rainy night, he summons the former trusted associate who betrayed him, Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), to a meeting. Nucky puts a bullet in Jimmy’s head. He’s half a gangster no more.
BREAKING BAD
After failing to kill drug kingpin Gus (Best Supporting Actor nominee Giancarlo Esposito) with a car bomb, Walter (Best Actor nominee Bryan Cranston) hatches his most diabolical plan yet: the explosive is wired to the wheelchair of Gus’s arch-enemy Tio Salamanca (Best Guest Actor nominee Mark Margolis), who sets it off by ringing the bell he uses to communicate. The money shot is Gus walking out of Tio’s blown-up nursing home room apparently none the worse for wear, until the camera pans to show that half his face is missing.
DOWNTON ABBEY
The drama on this wildly popular series about an aristocratic family and their servants pre- and postWWI tends to be of the tear-jerking more than blood and guts variety. And it’s hard to pick just one moment. Contenders include the death of second footman William (Thomas Howes), injured in the Battle of Amiens and succumbing just hours after marrying scullery maid Daisy; former valet Bates (Best Supporting Actor nominee Brendan Coyle) being sentenced to hang for the murder of his venomous ex-wife Vera; and, for the romantics out there, Mary (Best Actress nominee Michelle Dockery) and Matthew (Dan Stevens) being caught in a passionate kiss by Matthew’s fiancée Lavinia.
GAME OF THRONES
Again, it’s hard to choose just one moment when every episode of this fantasy series is so packed with bloody action and sex and treachery and supernatural goings-on. An obvious candidate would be the Battle of Blackwater, in which Tyrion (Best Supporting Actor nominee Peter Dinklage) manages to destroy Stannis’s fleet with the help of magical wildfire potion, then leads the Lannisters’ outnumbered troops against Stannis’s army while vile King Joffrey retreats inside the palace, where his mother plans to kill herself and her children if Stannis prevails.
HOMELAND
In a tour de force for Best Actor nominee Damian Lewis, Marine Sgt. Brody plans to blow up the U.S. vice-president and his defence team after getting them into a bunker with the help of a fake sniper attack by old Marine buddy Sgt. Walker. Brody’s suicide vest malfunctions, then a call from his daughter convinces him to abort the plan. But he’s still ruthless enough to shoot and kill Walker. CIA agent Carrie (Best Actress nominee Claire Danes) had cottoned onto the scheme and persuaded Brody’s daughter to call.
MAD MEN
The most dramatic moment in this show’s fifth season didn’t air before the eligibility cutoff of May 31. That was the awful discovery that Lane (Best Supporting Actor nominee Jared Harris) had hanged himself inside his office after Don (Best Actor nominee Jon Hamm) discovered Lane’s embezzling and forced him to resign. So we’ll settle for Joan (Best Supporting Actress nominee Christina Hendricks) sleeping with a creepy client so the firm could land the Jaguar account and Joan could secure her future by being made partner.